


Cold Water and Hydrogen Peroxide

by Miss_Nihilist



Series: I Think There's a Fault in My Code [2]
Category: Astro Boy (2009)
Genre: Aftermath, Blood and Gore, Gen, Murder, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Nihilist/pseuds/Miss_Nihilist
Summary: Astro didn't move. All he could focus on were the spots of dull red on white tile. The fluorescent lights were buzzing so loudly in his ears that he wanted to tear them off.What had he beenthinking?
Series: I Think There's a Fault in My Code [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767133
Comments: 15
Kudos: 58





	Cold Water and Hydrogen Peroxide

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this one is "blood-stained clothes." It's pretty neat how movieverse Astro's arm cannons just activate without him making the decision to, huh?

It was on the bedroom window, dribbled on the carpeted floor. It dripped down the hallway, slumping along the walls where he had supported himself in his carelessness. There was no need for physical support, really. He had run multiple system scans looking for injuries or flaws, purely out of desperation to keep his head busy so that he wouldn't have to think so much. Not that it worked. He was too perfect to be occupied by a routine scan.

He didn't feel perfect.

The bathroom light was flipped on, another dirty red smear on the pristine white walls.

It had all happened so fast. The girl's cry for help, the wicked glint of the pistol, his vision flashing red, three words: _"Defense Systems Armed."_ What had he been thinking?

He hadn't been thinking. His body was too efficient, too perfect, too _robotic_. A threat had been registered and he had fired. He didn't even notice the blood until the woman started screaming again, running off, away from the body that had slumped headless to the pavement and the ugly, clumpy stain of pink and red where what remained of the man's brain had landed.

His fourth system scan of the evening was completed. No issues to report. Everything was perfect.

Astro didn't have a stomach, but he felt the memory of it seize and twist violently. He wished he had one so that he could vomit. So that he could dislodge the terrible sensation that had locked itself just beneath his ribs.

Except that he didn't have ribs, either. He was metal and wires and well-placed, well-timed electric currents. He was his durable skin, his synthetic hair, the cameras embedded into his artificial skull to simulate the eyes of a boy that was long dead.

_Dead…_

Somehow, Astro managed to drag his gaze up to the bathroom mirror. He took a step forward, his metallic feet clicking too loudly against the tiles. His eyes didn't look alive anymore. They looked dead, like everything else. He observed his reflection, detached. Maybe he wasn't just steel and copper and rubber. He was the clothes on his back, the blood dripping leisurely from his fingertips.

If he was a person, then he was whatever he chose to be. And he had let himself make this choice. He could only blame his self-defense programming for so long.

He turned around, looking back the way he came. Bloody footprints led right to him — back down the hall, through his bedroom, out the window where he had let himself in, and winding all the way through the skies and back to that rancid alley where a corpse was decomposing. It hadn't been long. The body was probably still in the algor mortis stage.

He knew that Doctor Tenma wouldn't be home until late. He had warned Astro earlier in the day not to expect him and offered an apology as compensation. Normally, he wouldn't be happy for his dad to spend so much time at the Ministry of Science, but Astro was willing to make an exception. It gave him time to put everything into place again.

Time to make everything perfect.

"Master Astro?" Orrin's call caught his attention after Astro had somehow managed to miss the squeak of his house-keeping robot's wheel on the floor. It got louder as he approached. Astro didn't move. "Is that you? What are you doing back so early…?"

Orrin stopped in the middle of the hallway, caught in the light spilling out of the bathroom door with his eyes wide, frozen in horror. He looked to Astro, then to the splattered red mess that had been left down the hallway.

"Sorry about the mess, Orrin." Astro's voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ears. Clipped and impersonal, not at all how he usually spoke. He wasn't normally so obviously robotic. "I'll clean it up. It'll be gone before dad gets home."

Orrin's eyes flickered toward him and were quickly torn away again. Astro wondered what he looked like at that moment. What did Orrin see — a monster, or a scared child?

When he did speak again, Orrin's words were slow and careful, meticulously crafted so as not to cause an upset. "Why don't you clean yourself up, Master Astro, while I handle the walls and floors? You'll only worsen the mess if you don't clean yourself first."

After his little breakdown earlier, Astro felt surprisingly calm. He remembered huddling in on himself, clutching his head, screaming and sobbing, wanting to punch the wall and wanting to rip his own heart out, anything to make the unbearable pressure of guilt lessen even a little bit. A part of him still wanted to do it.

Astro did none of those things. He only nodded. "Good thinking, Orrin," he agreed. "I'll clean myself up."

He got a tense smile from Orrin, one that Astro didn't bother to return. "There's some peroxide under the sink," he said with false cheer, trembling. Astro couldn't tell if he was upset due to fear or anxiety. He didn't ask. Orrin gave him one last look over, shuddered, and swung the bathroom door shut with a slam.

Alone, Astro didn't move. All he could focus on were the spots of dull red on white tile. The fluorescent lights were buzzing so loudly in his ears that he wanted to tear them off.

He tugged his shirt off over his head, turning back to the sink. In the back of his mind, Astro began a fifth system scan, just to be sure. It was compulsive by that point. His shirt hung limply in his hands. It had been blue that morning, but it was red by that point. All he could see was red.

Astro knew vaguely how to get blood stains out of clothes: cold water and hydrogen peroxide. Instead, he made his hands heat up. Rubbing his fingers back and forth rapidly created friction and Astro watched blankly as his shirt began to singe and smoke. He held it over the sink, letting the fabric fall to pieces between his hands as frayed bits of cloth and ash gathered in the porcelain basin.

Burned. Astro never wanted to see that shirt again. If he could strip his skin and hair off and burn those too, he would. He wondered if hydrogen peroxide would work on his artificial body or if he would have to scrub with cold water and hope for the best.

His fifth system scan signaled its completion by flashing his vision green. No problems, of course. He was supposed to be perfect. Astro focused on it all methodically. His bloodied pants were still left to destroy, then he could clean up the rest of his body and worry about the bathroom, then he would go help Orrin with the rest of the house. It had to be spotless before his dad came home. Ideally, he would never have to know what Astro was capable of. Everything would be precise, pristine, _perfect_. 

By the end of it, Doctor Tenma would never have to know that, in his effort to bring his son back to life, he had created a monster.

**Author's Note:**

> **Feel free to check out my Astro Boy blog[HERE for updates on my writing and other Astro Boy content!](https://astroboy2003sub.tumblr.com)**


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